The story I'm about to tell is a battle between Good vs. Evil. Courage vs. Fear. Taking the red line late at night from up North vs. Just hailing a cab. If that cab would only stop... Muahahaha!! Hahahah!! *cough* hahahah!! *cough* *cough* aha! *ahem*.
It was a Thursday. After 10pm. It was either Berwyn. Or Bryn Mawr. One of the "B" stops. Anyway, we were far!! We had just wrapped a rehearsal at a friend's apartment, said our goodbyes and high-fives, and my friend Michael and I were left to our own devices to get home. We lived in the same direction, so we just began walking to the train when it became clear neither of us made the distinct look of trying to peer over things to find a parked car.
It was dark. Because it was like 10:15. At. Night.
As we were walking merrily along talking about rehearsal and having a grand ol' time, a peloton of teenage thugs emerged from an apartment and begin noisily walking right behind us. There were 5-6 of them, if there were a hundred. A quick glance would note they were all towering over the two of us, talking loudly, and just being overall intimidating. We had no choice. Michael and I just continued to talk gaily, remembering bits from rehearsal and riffing off them. We both held a small twinkle in our eyes that seemed to say, "Keep laughing! Don't you dare stop laughing!"
We were holding strong. Laughing on the outside, our guts knotting up on the inside with fear. But more street light was quickly approaching. We weren't far from a busy intersection! Full of people and witnesses. Joy was on our faces, warming our bodies...which quickly returned to fear. As we were to cross the street, we noticed another armada of hooligan teens beginning to cross the street. There would be 7-8 more coming towards us. They flared out to take up more space...and we had to dance the forbidden dance in order to avoid making contact with any of them. I remembered all of those movies where people had to pull ninja moves to get around the activated motion-sensor laser beams. In the corner of my eye, I saw Michael had seen the same films, and seemed to move like a ballerina in slow-motion, moving to an aria. I, like Catherine Zeta-Jones from that one movie nobody can remember, but can recall that scene instantly.
We made it to the other side. We did it. A tsunami of thug had passed us by and we were unscathed. We rejoiced. We smiled again and could un-pucker everything that had been puckered. We had made it to the train! And we did it with courage.
"Boy, that was kinda scary," I had finally let out.
"Yeah. Small ass, fat wallet. That's my problem," expressed Michael.
We shared another victory laugh and could finally exhale. I heard a small noise, stopped laughing, and wheeled around quickly, ready to do some damage.
Nothing of danger.
So we could laugh again.
AHAHAH..Quietly!
ahaha.
This is a vast world we live in. And it's so incredibly tiny. Nearly 7 billion mini-worlds swimming blindly around, casually bumping into one another, slowly absorbing others like dying stars, or just blatantly ignoring everything around them, blasting through life on their own mini-missions from mini-Houston. It amazes me that with all of the ignoring going on, people can still find time to make connections. We don't ever seem to open our senses.
Through improv, I've been able to meet people from all over the world. I've met people who traveled from England and Australia to study improv in Chicago. I've also met people from my hometown here also because of improv. Sure, those are just coincidences. But just like Commissioner Gordon says, "You're a detective now - there are no coincidences." Such as improv. Those are signs of being in the right place at the right time.
Explaining improv to people who aren't improv people is ridiculous. It's not impossible, but it often ends with people looking like this:
I explain that it's not just about getting up on stage at your local Laugh Shack and spouting off funny one-liners while making Buffy the Vampire Slayer references *ahem*, or dropping movie titles left and right trying to impress people. Sure, we make stuff up and we fly sans script, but there's more to it than that.
Did you like the movie Limitless with THE Bradley Cooper? Good, me too. Because it's all about improv. Alright, there was a script, but the film had a strong feel of improv. When Bradley got into a jam, he would take a clear pill, and his mind would explode with possibilities. He wrote a novel, cleaned his apartment, AND went all Good Will Hunting on the stock market. Improv is like this little pill...it allows you to see, feel, and use everything in your environment.
"I once was blind but now I see." When you allow yourself to notice your surroundings, life happens. Such as improv.
Or how about Jim Carrey's Yes Man? All he did was say yes and agree to do everything that came his way. Look how much fun he had, not knowing what was happening next, but building on what others brought before him! He ordered a foreign bride, learned Korean, and saved a man's life with Third Eye Blind. Third. Eye. Blind.
Major aspects of what I've learned about improv can be summed up with someone a non-improv person said to me. "Improv is like meditation. The past is regret, the future is fear. Live in the present." This was my MOM, people! Not an improv wizard, just a general wizard in life. She was able to sum up the idea of improv in a sentence, and to my knowledge, has never hopped up on an improv stage.
She said this profound statement to me multiple times. The first time, I just didn't get it. She said it again months later and I was ready to hear it, and it began to link all of these little signs and space bubbles together. Not coincidences, but the right place, right time moments. Linking pieces of life, literature, events, thoughts...I felt that my world was a winding down Tarantino movie, connecting all the characters and stories together.
This chapter in my life was a...a...a Harold.
To non-improv people, a Harold is basically my aforementioned description of a Tarantino movie, only more layered and complicated, and usually with less blood. Such as life.
In the actor's world of constant rejection and dire need to be accepted and wanted, it's nice to know these parallels exist. It let's you know that even if they didn't cast you, they still want to be friends.
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